And little Tommy wonnered if he could climb up on it and wonnered what anybody could see from the top.
And I looked on it and felt as if I could almost see the march of the centuries defile by its stubborn old sides, and I wondered like Tommy what one could look off and see from the top, gazing out acrost our centuries so full of wonders and inventions, into the glowin’ mysteries of the twentieth century.
Robert Strong said that some thought it wuz built for astronomical purposes, for there is a passage down three hundred and twenty feet from the bed rock from which you can view the sky.
“And some think,” sez Dorothy, “it wuz built to measure distances correctly, it stands true east, north, south, west.”
And Miss Meechim sez, “I believe it wuz built for religious purposes: the interior passages have many stones and symbols that are a mystery to every one unless it is explained in this way.”
Sez Arvilly, “I believe it wuz made to shet up folks in that got drunk and acted. Probable there wuz some even in that fur-off time that made fools of themselves jest as they do now, and old Chops built it to shet ’em up in, and mebby he wuz shet up in it, too; mebby he took to drinkin’. I wish I could have sold him the ‘Twin Crimes’; it would have helped him a sight, but I wuzn’t born soon enough,” sez she, sithin’.
Tommy stood back a little, lookin’ up and seein’ some people half-way to the top, lookin’ like flies on the side of the meetin’ house, said:
“I wonner, oh, I wonner who made it and what it wuz made for, and oh, how I do wonner how they ever got them big stones to the top.”
And I sez to myself, “the child is wiser than any of us. He don’t try to measure his weak surmises on them great rocks and problems, but jest wonders at it all,” and I thought I would foller his example, and I felt considerable better after I gin up.